Woman Says Thing was Otter, not Groundhog

By: FERDINAND MONTGOMERY

WORTHINGTON – Debbie Marshall said she’d never seen anything like it.

Marshall, 84, said she has lived in Worthington her entire life. On Sunday, Nov. 16 Marshall said she saw something “long, sleek and black ” slip into the fish pond at Shadowy Gardens First Lutheran Elder Care Community where she makes her home.

“I have never, in my life, seen a thing that looked like that thing did,” said Marshall. “I didn’t even know we had otters in Ohio.”

Marshall said it took her a minute to realize what she was seeing.

“I’ve seen them before,” said Marshall. “I saw a special on them on WOSU once. That was an otter.”

Marshall said she was waiting for her ride to church when she saw the “otter” slip out from beyond the Shadowy Gardens sign on the side of the building. She said she then watched it as it made its way across the parking lot, the yard and into the fish pond where she then watched it swim around for ”a couple or three minutes” before it dove down and disappeared.

“I saw it,” said Marshall. ”It was an otter.”

Samuel Ridgeway, 67, drives a group from Shadowy Gardens to church every morning and was the first one on the scene after the sighting.

“I didn’t see it either,” said Ridgeway. “I saw once how those things will lay on their backs and use their front claws to eat a fish like a person would.”

The incident raised quite a commotion with the church group, said Harold Dormer, an employee at Shadowy Gardens.

“They were all out there at the pond looking into the water,” laughed Dormer. “I’ve never seen them late to church. Sunday, they might have been a little late.”

Not everyone in the church group was ready to take Marshall’s word for it.

Max Leeds, 81, is also a resident at Shadowy Gardens and he said he has never seen an otter in the area and that he doesn’t believe Marshall saw one either.

“(Marshall) wouldn’t know an otter if she found it sleeping on her t.v. tray,” said Leeds. “It was just some big groundhog or something.”

Ridgeway said the argument actually got pretty heated.

“(Marshall) wouldn’t even go eat with us,” said Ridgeway, adding that the group normally goes to Bill Knapps for lunch after church on Sundays. “She made us bring her back and she went to her room without even saying goodbye to anybody.”

“It was an otter,” said Marshall. “I saw it plain as day.”

Marshall said she plans to use the media center to print off pictures of an otter. She said she plans to distribute them through the building and intends to nominate the creature as the official Shadowy Gardens mascot.

“Groundhog,” said Marshall. “I seen a lot of ground hogs and that was an otter.”